But the Question is: Do Most Christians Go to Hell?

[distracted]

According to several saints/doctors of the Church, even most Christians do not make it to Heaven or even to Purgatory. And the site, www.SpiritLessons.com refutes entirely the Once Saved Always Saved doctrine (Mary Baxter’s story, etc…). So please, everyone, do not fool yourself that “God is mercifiul and will let virtually everyone into Heaven”. Yes, He is merciful, but only toward those who love Him with all their hearts and hate sin about as much as He does…

There is only one reason people don’t go to Heaven: that old-fashioned-virtually-unmentioned-seemingly obsolete-word:

Sin.

It is sin and its awful effects - not God - that shuts the door of Heaven on our souls…

We need not only to be f**orgiven, but to be purified once we are forgiven…

 

[Andruschak]

According to several saints/doctors of the Church, even most Christians do not make it to Heaven or even to Purgatory

“Most” = what percentage? Does anyone REALLY know? Well, one can only hope, I suppose. I will be spending my full time in Purgatory, I hope. (Heroic Act and all that)

 

[mommyof4]

I really don’t see what purpose threads like this serve. It can make people despair of their salvation, and that is a sin.

 

[dove51]

I really don’t see what purpose threads like this serve. It can make people despair of their salvation, and that is a sin.

I agree. We hear it enough. Just reading Scripture verses on this is enough to scare the wits out of me.

 

[Cathryn]

Fatima Prayer (Invocation)

V. O my Jesus, forgive us our sins.
R. Save us from the fires of hell. Lead all souls to heaven, especially those in most need of Thy mercy.

We have no idea of how many go to heaven or hell. We have been taught however to pray for all to go to heaven. I think the worst thing a Catholic can do is assume someone is damned to hell. We should pray for them.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

We do know that Jesus said “Few”.

“Few” doesn’t mean most and it doesn’t mean a majority.

How much less than a majority few means we do not know.

But just think–if a majority go to Hell then Billions of people will go to Hell.

Is that why Paul wrote “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling”?

If billions of people going to Hell doesn’t make you tremble–what will?

 

[blessedstar]

Why are you constantly thinking about this topic? It’s not spiritually healthy and whetehr you want my personal opinion or not I’m going to give it to you:

Spend your time on positive spiritual reading that will edify, educate and develop you and your faith…

You have no business speculating who’s going to end up where and you certainly cannot know how many go here, there or wherever.

God is merciful and He is merciful to souls who call upon His mercy. If you have some notion that God is only merciful to those who serve Him in perfect love then you are sorely mistaken. If that was the case Jesus would not have died upon the Cross and Risen again as He did. Threads and ideas like this make a mockery of the Salvific work of God and His great Mercy and Kindness without which all of us would be heading to hell.

I can’t even imagine anyone going to hell, the prospect is so awful I wouldn’t desire it for anyone, let alone specualte about which kind of character might go there. I don’t desire hell for the worst murderer, the worst thief, the worst mugger, the worst rapist, the worst assassin, the worst terrorist, the worst, mother, the worst father, the worst paedophile, the worst drug addict, the worst athiest, the worst paedophile, the worst liar, etc etc etc I don’t care what you have done in life, even at your last breathe your soul may come to the Hands of God and receive His Mercy because God is greater than any man and God Himself does not judge, but calls all to Him even until the last second.

God loves us so much you have no idea, you cannot even scratch the surface of the depth of love He has for His creatures and I am sure God is not pleased that souls are contemplating the fate of other Christians and seeing it so fatalistically. Looking at the Cross a soul may gleen a little of the Inifinite Love God is, but if you think of the greatest love then you have only known God’s love a little because His Love is immeasurable.
**
Stop judging unless you desire to be judged!**

Personally I think those Saints got the worry on because they were given such light about God by God they realised just how great His is and in turn how much nothing they were and started speculating also and it is very easily done believe me. It’s also not a good thing.

Now I am about as sick as I can be of thinking about this dismal topic.

In the Living Prayer of my life

 

[mommyof4]

Why are you constantly thinking about this topic? It’s not spiritually healthy and whetehr you want my personal opinion or not I’m going to give it to you:

Spend your time on positive spiritual reading that will edify, educate and develop you and your faith…

You have no business speculating who’s going to end up where and you certainly cannot know how many go here, there or wherever.

God is merciful and He is merciful to souls who call upon His mercy. If you have some notion that God is only merciful to those who serve Him in perfect love then you are sorely mistaken. If that was the case Jesus would not have died upon the Cross and Risen again as He did. Threads and ideas like this make a mockery of the Salvific work of God and His great Mercy and Kindness without which all of us would be heading to hell.

I can’t even imagine anyone going to hell, the prospect is so awful I wouldn’t desire it for anyone, let alone specualte about which kind of character might go there. I don’t desire hell for the worst murderer, the worst thief, the worst mugger, the worst rapist, the worst assassin, the worst terrorist, the worst, mother, the worst father, the worst paedophile, the worst drug addict, the worst athiest, the worst paedophile, the worst liar, etc etc etc I don’t care what you have done in life, even at your last breathe your soul may come to the Hands of God and receive His Mercy because God is greater than any man and God Himself does not judge, but calls all to Him even until the last second.

God loves us so much you have no idea, you cannot even scratch the surface of the depth of love He has for His creatures and I am sure God is not pleased that souls are contemplating the fate of other Christians and seeing it so fatalistically. Looking at the Cross a soul may gleen a little of the Inifinite Love God is, but if you think of the greatest love then you have only known God’s love a little because His Love is immeasurable.
**
Stop judging unless you desire to be judged!**

Personally I think those Saints got the worry on because they were given such light about God by God they realised just how great His is and in turn how much nothing they were and started speculating also and it is very easily done believe me. It’s also not a good thing.

Now I am about as sick as I can be of thinking about this dismal topic.

In the Living Prayer of my life

Well said, my friend.

 

[Teelynn]

Well said, my friend.

I’ll 2nd that!! (or I guess I’ll 3rd that ) Leading people to such scrupulosity is bordering on*** a sin against hope***. Jesus is ALL MERCIFUL. Yes, He is a Just Judge, but His MERCY IS BEYOND OUR UNDERSTANDING! HIS MERCY ENDURES FOREVER.

Well said Blessedstar!

Repeat after me: JESUS HAVE MERCY ON ME, A SINNER, JESUS I TRUST IN YOU!!!

 

[Mannyfit75]

According to several saints/doctors of the Church, even most Christians do not make it to Heaven or even to Purgatory. And the site, www.SpiritLessons.com refutes entirely the Once Saved Always Saved doctrine (Mary Baxter’s story, etc…). So please, everyone, do not fool yourself that “God is mercifiul and will let virtually everyone into Heaven”. Yes, He is merciful, but only toward those who love Him with all their hearts and hate sin about as much as He does…

There is only one reason people don’t go to Heaven: that old-fashioned-virtually-unmentioned-seemingly obsolete-word:

Sin.

It is sin and its awful effects - not God - that shuts the door of Heaven on our souls…

We need not only to be f****orgiven, but to be purified once we are forgiven…

Actually, we don’t have John Doe from the Gallup poll to conduct how many Christians there are in hell. We don’t know. I know who are in hell. They are unrepentent sinners. I don’t know their names though.

 

[The_Catholic]

Those who are dammed will be those who DO NOT want God, or desire to live by His ways. Those who go to heaven will be those who TRULY want Him, love Him, and seek Him.

If one seeks the Truth he will find it.

 

[pray4peace]

Yes, He is merciful, but only toward those who love Him with all their hearts and hate sin about as much as He does…

I would never be so bold to assume to know what God will do. God knows more than we do. Trust in God.

Blessings

 

[contramundum7]

i was very troubled by all this info about Hell… then read St. Faustina’s Diary, it helped a lot. It shows that if we only turn to Christ’s Mercy - sins and all - He will give it to us. Jesus told her about people who turn away from Him because of their sins…
Maybe that is why a lot of people don’t make it to Heaven… they can’t give up their sins (100%)and/or they feel they can’t approach Jesus *with *them…
Even so, i believe it is better to presume God is “harsh”… The Old Testament speaks a lot of His wrath… and God doesn’t change. His holiness doesn’t change. Some saint said that to presume too much on God’s mercy is just as wrong as to presume He won’t show any. Anyway, St. Faustina says that Jesus just wants us to LOVE Him… not so much to be doing this or doing that for Him every minute of the day. At one point, He asked her to talk to Him, even when she reminded HIm that He already knew her heart… He just wanted her to talk to him like she talked to “people”.
Jesus told her that the person who will not accept His mercy must pass through His justice… and of course, who can do that?
maybe that is why so many don’t “make it”… They always focus on what they deserve rather than Christ’s love and mercy…

 

[jay29]

It is very simple for me: The church teaches that dying with even ONE mortal sin on your soul will send you to hell…

Catechism:

**1037 **God predestines no one to go to hell; for this, a willful turning away from God (a mortal sin) is necessary, and persistence in it until the end…

An unrepentant sinner will never make it…

 

[Mijoy2]

I really don’t see what purpose threads like this serve. It can make people despair of their salvation, and that is a sin.

I have to respectfully disagree.

I can’t see how any Chrisitian can think of anything else. The perspective posters almost invariably take when replying to the concerns of a someone about the potential (high percentage) of someone being eternally lost is almost always the same.

Essentially they assume the person near despair is concerned for themself. I propose this is not the case. Of course we should all be concerned about ourselves but this is not what I mean. The despair (or near despair) that keeps me awake nights and on occasion makes me want to believe there is no God, is the despair over loved ones who are not as educated as myself on the Catholic Church. The loved ones who follow the word as 90 something percent of all people do.

I resent the invidual suggesting to me I should not despair over this. How does one look into the eyes of a loved one and picture thier flesh burning off of them for all eternity (Augustine)?

We cry when our childrens hearts are broken because a friend was mean to them, we ache when our child is suffering with physical pain, we cry when our child cries. Yet we are not to despair over the (very strong based on Jesus’s words and Saints quotations) possiblity of thier flesh being burned off thier bodies only to regrow and burn again for all eternity (again Augustine).

Please, I respectively ask you, do not tell me not to despair.

 

[Ahimsa]

The following passage should shed some light on the matter. From the book, “St. Silouan the Athonite” by Archimandrite Sophrony Sakharov, Essex England 1991 pages 210-211

“Keep thy mind in hell, and despair not.” What does it mean to “keep thy mind in hell”? Can it be that we are to use the imagination to conjure up circumstances for ourselves similar to those figures in some primitive painting? In this instance, no. Father Silouan, like certain great Fathers - St. Anthony, St. Sisoe, St. Makarios, St. Pimen - during his lifetime actually descended into the darkness and torments of hell. They did this not once but over and over again until their hearts were so permeated that they were able to repeat the movement at will. They took refuge in it when passion - especially the most subtle of passions, pride - reared its head. The struggle against pride is, in fact, the final stage in the battle against passions. To begin with, the ascetic must wrestle with the greater passions of the flesh, then with irritability, and finally, pride. This last combat is undoubtedly the most painful of all. Taught by long experience that pride leads to loss of grace, the ascetic consciously descends into hell where every passion is ‘seared with a hot iron’. The Starets observed that most people despair when they approach this state and give in. This is why the great Sisoe said, ‘Who can bear St. Anthony’sthought? By the way, I know a man’(it was himself Sisoe) ‘who can bear it’. Here, as Staretz Silouan explained, Sisoe was thinking of what St Anthony learned from the shoemaker of Alexandria…"

"Blessed Staretz Silouan said that many ascetics when they approached that state - which is vital if one would be cleansed of the passions - would fall into despair and be unable to continue. But the one who knows ‘how greatly the Lord loveth us’ escapes the pernicious effect of total despair and knows how to stand prudently on the verge so that the hellish fire burns away his every passion and does not fall victiom to despair. ‘And despair not.’

 

[blacktiger057]

Who are we to say who goes to hell and who doesn’t? We don’t even know!

For all we know, there could be no people in hell at all! Why always so negative?

 

[Mark_Robert]

I guess the answer depends on how you care to define the word ‘Christian’. Some define the word '“christian” according to the secular, generic sense of the word, that is, people who call themselves christian because they received baptism, were married in a church, have gone to Sunday mass or service on occasion, believe in a higher power or just because they deem themselves “good” people. In that sense, most people would call themselves “christian”. However, the true meaning of being a christian is one who believes in God, trusts Christ for the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation and genuinely tries to follow the teachings of Christ (in the case of Roman Catholics, the teaching authority of Mother Church). The former is a generic term that may or may not pertain to eternal salvation. However, if a person is defined by the latter definition of denying self and following Christ, they are certainly part of the elect on the narrow path that leads to life.

 

[The_Catholic]

I have to respectfully disagree.

I can’t see how any Chrisitian can think of anything else. The perspective posters almost invariably take when replying to the concerns of a someone about the potential (high percentage) of someone being eternally lost is almost always the same.

Essentially they assume the person near despair is concerned for themself. I propose this is not the case. Of course we should all be concerned about ourselves but this is not what I mean. The despair (or near despair) that keeps me awake nights and on occasion makes me want to believe there is no God, is the despair over loved ones who are not as educated as myself on the Catholic Church. The loved ones who follow the word as 90 something percent of all people do.

I resent the invidual suggesting to me I should not despair over this. How does one look into the eyes of a loved one and picture thier flesh burning off of them for all eternity (Augustine)?

We cry when our childrens hearts are broken because a friend was mean to them, we ache when our child is suffering with physical pain, we cry when our child cries. Yet we are not to despair over the (very strong based on Jesus’s words and Saints quotations) possiblity of thier flesh being burned off thier bodies only to regrow and burn again for all eternity (again Augustine).

Please, I respectively ask you, do not tell me not to despair.

Hmmm, this is something I don’t believe, “flesh burning off and regrowing only to burn off again forever.” Perhaps I’m wrong. And if this IS how it is then so be it, God is always right and just. But as I can see it this sounds like torture a serial killer would do. I am NOT calling my Lord a serial killer, oh heaven forbid no, I just can’t agree with some of the Church Father’s beliefs and teachings on hell, that it’s a place like that. I think it’s eternal seperation, lonliness away from God. Oh boy, even that though sounds just as bad as physical torment. I don’t know what to think. I just want to cry

 

[The_Catholic]

I guess the answer depends on how you care to define the word ‘Christian’. Some define the word '“christian” according to the secular, generic sense of the word, that is, people who call themselves christian because they received baptism, were married in a church, have gone to Sunday mass or service on occasion, believe in a higher power or just because they deem themselves “good” people. In that sense, most people would call themselves “christian”. However, the true meaning of being a christian is one who believes in God, trusts Christ for the forgiveness of sins and eternal salvation and genuinely tries to follow the teachings of Christ (in the case of Roman Catholics, the teaching authority of Mother Church). The former is a generic term that may or may not pertain to eternal salvation. However, if a person is defined by the latter definition of denying self and following Christ, they are certainly part of the elect on the narrow path that leads to life.

EXACTLY! AWESOME!!